Rich Sternbach was the senior production illustrator/designer for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. Together with Michael Okuda, he served as a technical consultant to the script staff, maintaining technical and chronological continuity and inventing scientific terms and technobabble, resulting in internal documents as Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers' Technical Manual and Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual.

He has been a space and science fiction artist since the early 1970s with clients including NASA, Sky and Telescope, Smithsonian, Analog, Astronomy, and The Planetary Society. Rick received the Hugo award for best professional science fiction artist, in 1977 and 1978.

He is a founding member and Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA), which was formed in 1981 and received an Emmy award for his visual effects work on the Cosmos miniseries in 1980.

In 2004 Rick initiated Space Model Systems, an outgrowth of his space and science fiction art studio operation, which has been dedicated to providing unique model and art products to the space science educator, collector, or hobbyist.

Most recently, Rick was included in the special committee advising the National Air & Space Museum on the restoration and conservation of the eleven foot Starship U.S.S. Enterprise filming miniature.